Friday, March 4, 2011

Has your marriage failed?

I was married for 20 years and thought I had a good solid, marriage. Beautiful kids, a hard working husband and that is all I needed. Until one day, eight months ago my husband walked out on me, and my life fell apart. I was lost, in pain, no money, no home and no where to turn. My life had no meaning and no joy. Have you ever felt like that? Post your comments.

2 comments:

EVERY relationship has a cycle. In the beginning,you fell in love with your spouse. Youanticipated their call, wanted their touch, andliked their idiosyncrasies.

Falling in love with your spouse wasn't hard. Infact, it was a completely spontaneousexperience. You didn't have to DO anything.That's why it's called "falling" in love - becauseit's happening TO YOU.

People in love sometimes say, "I was swept off myfeet." Think about the imagery of thatexpression. It implies that you were juststanding there; doing nothing, and then somethingcame along and happened TO YOU.

Falling in love is easy. It's a passive andspontaneous experience.

But after a few years of marriage, the euphoriaof love fades. It's the natural cycle of EVERYrelationship. Slowly but surely, phone callsbecome a bother (if they come at all), touch isnot always welcome (when it happens), and yourspouse's idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute,drive you nuts.

The symptoms of this stage vary with everyrelationship, but if you think about yourmarriage, you will notice a dramatic differencebetween the initial stage when you were in loveand a much duller or even angry subsequent stage.

At this point, you and/or your spouse might startasking, "Did I marry the right person?" And asyou and your spouse reflect on the euphoria ofthe love you once had, you may begin to desirethat experience with someone else. This is whenmarriages breakdown. People blame their spousefor their unhappiness and look outside theirmarriage for fulfillment.

Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes andsizes. Infidelity is the most obvious. Butsometimes people turn to work, church, a hobby, afriendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances.

But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lieoutside your marriage. It lies within it.

I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in lovewith someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILYyou'd feel better. But you'd be in the samesituation a few years later. Because (listencarefully) THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING INMARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'SLEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND.

SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneousexperience. It'll NEVER just happen to you. Youcan't "find" LASTING love. You have to "make" itday in and day out. That's why we have theexpression "the labor of love." Because it takestime, effort, and energy. And most importantly,it takes WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO tomake your marriage work.

Make no mistake about it. Loveis NOT a mystery. There are specific things youcan do (with or without your spouse) to succeedwith your marriage.

Just as there are physical laws of the universe(such as gravity), there are also laws forrelationships. Just as the right diet andexercise program makes you physically stronger,certain habits in your relationship WILL makeyour marriage stronger. It's a direct cause andeffect. If you know and apply the laws, theresults are predictable - you can "make" love.

Marriage Fitness a step-by-step system for makingand maintaining love in your marriage. And theprogram works for any marriage even if only onespouse does it.

1.Stay together and be miserable.2.Get a divorce.But there is a third option, and many couples successfully take this other road. In an exciting new study, couples participating in a national survey were asked to rate their marriage on a scale of one to seven, with one being very unhappy and seven being very happy. Those who rated their marriages a "one" had incredible turnarounds just five years later – if they stayed together. In fact, 77 percent of those giving their marriage a very unhappy "one" rated their marriage as a "seven" after five years.1 Was there some breakthrough therapy involved? No. In fact, many did relatively little – they just "stuck it out" and things got better.

As mentioned earlier, another study found that about 60 percent of marriages that ended in divorce were not bad marriages, but average.2 They had average levels of positive interactions and average levels of conflict. Basically, these marriages were "good enough" but could be improved. Most marriages go through emotional ups and downs – times of great happiness and times of boredom and fatigue.

To have good marriages, we need to ride out the "lows" and learn from those times so that the relationship can be strengthened. If your relationship is at a low point and you wonder what happened to the spark, there is good news. It's not too late to revitalize your relationship.

What Makes Marriages Get Better? Researchers followed up on those couples who rated their marriages as unhappy at first and happy five years later. Here's what the couples told them were the reasons for the dramatic turnaround:3

•Waiting. Since many couples have unhappy marriages due to outside pressures (like a job loss or the demands of young children), the passage of time changed those circumstances. Things just naturally got better again.•Working at it. Many of the problems in marriage are a result of poor communication. Some couples told the researchers they simply learned to take small steps – like listening to each other – which resulted in happier marriages. For example, husbands learned to compliment wives, and wives learned to encourage husbands.•Personal happiness/perspective change in one spouse. Sometimes, one spouse simply decided not to base all of his or her happiness on the mood of the other spouse. Instead, one spouse took up a hobby or simply made an attitude adjustment that allowed him or her to be more patient and accepting of the other.•Credible threat of consequences for bad behavior. Some of the marriages were initially very unhappy because the husbands were engaged in "bad behaviors" – out late drinking with the boys, infidelity or even occasional abuse.4 Just as Dr. James Dobson advises in his book Love Must Be Tough, these wives took firm action and let their husbands know they would not tolerate such behavior. The husbands changed.There are many ways to improve your marriage. Today, there are hundreds of tools focused on ways to build strong, healthy relationships. A few examples include weekend getaway-style marriage conferences by Family Life Today or Marriage Encounter, film series and seminars hosted by local churches under the title "Marriage Enrichment" and mentoring programs through local churches.